Snapshots of Lives Unlived
by lauralizzie07
Summary: Sylar/Elle. Drabbles and oneshots of what may have happened, what could have happened, what should have happened.
1. Halloween Games

Halloween Games

* * *

Elle always loved Halloween. As a child, her father never allowed her to dress up or go trick-or-treating, but she loved to sneak into his office and watch The Great Pumpkin. Once Elle was an adult, of course, she started celebrating Halloween with a passion. Her costumes became legendary at Primatech--one year she was a cat (complete with false whiskers stuck on with spirit gum), another year she splurged on a kimono and white make-up and dressed as a geisha. The year after her father died, after she found Sylar again, after they ran off together, Primatech be damned, Elle wanted to have a special Halloween.

She scoured the costume shops high and low for an outfit in the correct colors. She straightened her hair, pulled it back into a ponytail and dug white bobby socks out of the bottom of her drawer. When Sylar came home that evening, Elle was waiting. Dressed as Claire Bennet.

Looking back, Elle thought she had never seen anyone get so angry, so quickly. She jumped as Sylar grabbed her arm and shoved her up against the wall. His face was contorted in anger as he shook her hard. "Take off the goddamn costume," he hissed. He turned his back on her and Elle could see from the tense line of his shoulders that he wasn't pleased.

"I thought you would like it," she said softly. When he didn't respond, Elle just sighed. "Is this because you thought Claire was your niece? Because she's not, so it's not... you know... weird to imagine that I'm her. If you want." Suddenly an idea struck her. "Do you want to watch me take it off?" she asked, allowing a teasing note to enter her voice. Sylar didn't speak, but his shoulders dropped a little and he turned to look at her. Elle took this as encouragement.

Looping her fingers into the waistband of her skirt, Elle slid it down slowly. She didn't bother wearing those tiny cheerleading shorts (what fun would that be?) and Sylar's gaze grew hungrier with each inch she exposed. Elle liked that kind of hunger, especially since it meant he wanted to fuck her brains out, not tear open her skull. Elle wriggled her hips and the skirt dropped to the floor.

"Should I continue?" Elle asked, sliding one hand up her shirt, "Or do you want to take over from here?" Sylar just stared at her, silently, so Elle shimmied out of her shirt and tossed it at Sylar's head. Now he was grinning--the sight of Elle in nothing but bobby socks and tennis shoes distracted him from the Claire Costume. Grabbing her around the waist, Sylar kissed her, running his hands over her body.

Elle's tiny fingers made quick work of his belt; the electric blonde pushed his pants to the floor and let him push her against the wall again. The difference was he wasn't angry this time--just determined. Elle hopped up, wrapping her long legs around Sylar's waist, letting him slip into her and thrust up again and again and again until she clenched around him and cried out his name.

They collapsed on the couch, worn out, but happy. "Maybe next year you could dress up as Peter," Elle suggested, burying her head in Sylar's neck. Narrowing his eyes, Sylar shocked Elle with her own blue sparks.

"Maybe you could dress up as Tracy," he teased, rolling Elle onto her back and kissing her deeply. Maybe they would. Or maybe they'd just be themselves.


	2. Electricity

Electricity

"Everything they do is hard and fast and electric--just like them."

* * *

Elle doesn't know why, but they keep finding themselves back in that cell--that cold room where they found each other again after a year and a half. Elle still remembers the way he took all of her anger, her grief, her vengeance. He absorbed it, like a sponge. It's kind of fitting, considering what Peter's power is (or was, whatever). Except Sylar's power is more permanent. Fatal. It suits him, and he suits her and that's really all that matters.

Sylar shoves her against the wall, pins one arm behind her back. Part of her thinks that she shouldn't be enjoying this so much. It's too rough, too forceful. Too abusive. The other part wishes Arthur hadn't removed the shackles from the floor.

Everything they do is hard and fast and electric--just like them. Sylar's words are coarse in her ear; words that should make her blush, but really they just turn her on more. A spark jumps from his mouth to the skin on Elle's neck, evaporating into her bloodstream. She loves that his sparks are her sparks. It's like a cycle--they give and take and share until Elle doesn't know which sparks were hers to begin with.

Sylar's hands travel over her body and she whimpers, wanting more but refusing to beg. This thing they have--this fling, relationship, fucked up life--is a constant struggle for dominance. Sometimes Elle wonders if he wants someone more... pliable. More sweet. Less sadistic. She caught him looking at Tracy once (it made her want to zap the ice queen until her brain fried), but he keeps coming back to her. There's got to be something in that.

Elle doesn't love him. She doesn't know if she's capable anymore, or if he even deserves it. Love, she thinks, is just a reason to miss him when he's gone. She loved her father, after all, and look where it got him. Look where it got her.

Sylar comes inside her, relinquishes the hold on her arm, turns her to face him. They kiss--all teeth and tongue--and when she pulls away the only thing that connects them is a single blue spark.


	3. Trust

Trust

"Boys trust their fathers, but sometimes they grow out of it."

* * *

Boys trust their fathers. It's one of the laws of nature--birds fly, fish swim, boys trust their dads entirely. There are no monsters under your bed. Keep your eye on the ball. Always meet your date at the door. Kill the cute blonde girl you've taken to kissing in dark corners.

"Trust me," Arthur said. "Everything will work out."

Boys trust their fathers, so Sylar killed Elle. He dragged her down to the lower levels into a cell with no windows. She kicked and screamed--begging for someone, anyone, to help her. The halls were deserted, echoing with the sound of her screams and crackling blue lightning.

She tripped and gashed her leg--the blood trickled freely down her thigh. He pushed her into a cell, shoved her up against the wall, and held her still. Elle struggled and cried, screaming as blue sparks danced across the floor. He tried to cut open her head--expose her brain--but it was too hard.

"Please," she whispered, balling her tiny hands into fists and beating them against the wall. "Please, don't." That gave him pause. Elle--sadistic, confident Elle--was pleading for her life. Sylar almost let her go. He almost took his hand away and let her stumble away from him, gasping. He wanted to watch her run, wanted her to leave and never look back. Sylar could lose her, he thought, if it meant that she was still alive.

But boys trust their fathers above all else, so Sylar held her still and snapped her neck. He let her fall to the ground like an abandoned rag doll. Sylar heaved up his lunch in a corner of the cell, hoping Arthur wasn't watching on one of his hidden cameras.

He picked her up as though she weighed nothing and tried not to remember how soft her hair was, how her tiny hands felt, dwarfed in his own. Sylar laid her on the shore with more care than he had taken with his other victims. He doused her with lighter fluid. Sylar thought he should say something, but nothing seemed right. He settled for "goodbye," and set her on fire with a spark of her own blue electricity. Boys trust their fathers, so Sylar watched Elle's body burn. Arthur patted his son on the shoulder. "Good job," he said. Sylar had to resist murdering his father and laying him out alongside his girl.

He waited until Arthur was gone before he pulled Elle's flaming body into the sea--dousing the fire with salt water. He wrapped her blackened body in cloth, cradling the bundle lovingly (if he's even capable of love). Sylar took her back to Pinehearst and hid her in a room with a window--not a cell, never a cell.

He did the blood transfusion himself: hooked up the needles and tubes, tied rubber around his bicep to make the veins pop. Sylar watched the thing on the bed, heart pounding. He wasn't sure his blood would work until he saw her charred skin fade and the half-completed gash across her forehead heal.

Elle's eyes fluttered open like she was waking up from a terrible dream. She sat up carefully, trying not to disturb the needle in her arm. "You bastard," she said, but she was grinning her strange, crooked grin. Sylar grinned back.

Boys trust their fathers, but sometimes they grow out of it.


	4. Don't Wake the Baby

"Don't Wake the Baby"

* * *

By the time Elle got baby Noah to sleep, it was 2 am. First he wanted to be fed. Then he needed to be changed. Then he wanted to play, but by then Elle was sick and tired of bouncing him and cooing at him. She wanted to sleep, but her son had other ideas. Every time she tried to leave the room, he would start to wail. One of Elle's books suggested leaving the baby to cry himself to sleep, but Elle just wondered what kind of parent could do that. So she cuddled him and burped him and sang off-key lullabies until he dropped off to sleep. Elle closed the nursery door softly and tried to do the same.

Then Gabriel came home. It was bad enough that Elle expected him home seven hours ago. It was bad enough that she had to put the baby to bed all by herself, but when Gabriel burst through the door (loudly), there was only one thing on his mind: sex. And frankly, Elle would be damned if she gave it to him.

Gabriel wrapped his arms around Elle's body, nuzzling her neck. Elle just pulled away. "I'm tired," she hissed. She wanted to yell, but if Noah woke up he would never get to sleep again.

Gabriel made a face that, on a lesser man, could be described as 'pouting.' "But we haven't had sex in a week," he protested, taking Elle's hand and pulling her toward the bedroom. "I missed you."

Elle started to say _"Well, if you missed me so much, then maybe you should have come home seven hours ago,"_ but Gabriel's hands were sliding up her shirt, brushing over the stomach that was still a little rounded from popping out a baby two months ago. Elle hated her body (she thought she was fat) but Gabriel couldn't get enough of her. He said it was because of Noah--that he knew she carried his child and really, what could be a bigger turn on then that?

Gabriel pulled Elle's shirt off and tossed it into the corner. He cupped her breasts, marveling at the new weight of them in his hands. Elle bit her lip to keep from crying out as Gabriel kissed her neck, her chest, her stomach and lower. Gabriel pressed her down onto the couch and buried his face between her legs. Elle's breath was coming in short, fast, pants as Gabriel's teeth and tongue brought her to the edge. Gabriel smiled--he could feel her tightening around his mouth and he knew she would come soon. Elle wanted to scream; she wanted to cry out Gabriel's name, but at the last second she remembered their child and she settled for pulling Gabriel's hair, urging him on (faster, quicker, more). Then it was all over and Elle fell limp against the couch.

Gabriel kissed her with a question in his eyes, and Elle sat up, grinning, to undo his pants. "Just one thing," she said as she pulled his cock out and pumped it a couple times. "Don't you _dare_ wake the fucking baby."


	5. Of Birds and Bees

Of Birds and Bees

* * *

Elle choked, sputtering orange juice across the kitchen table. "What?"

Her precocious six year old just blinked and repeated himself. "How did the baby get into your tummy?"

Elle looked at Gabriel, silently asking for assistance, but her husband was trying too hard not to laugh. "Well," Elle said, pulling Noah into her lap and arranging him around her swelling stomach, "When a man loves a woman very, very much, they have a way of showing that the love each other. And... that makes a baby."

"But how did it get into your tummy?" Noah rubbed Elle's stomach gently.

"Magic," Elle said simply, sliding Noah off her lap and returning to her cereal.

"Elle!" Gabriel looked shocked. "Do you want him to go to school tomorrow and tell everyone that his mommy has a baby because of _magic_?"

Elle narrowed her eyes, "Well I didn't see you offering another explanation."

"Fine. C'mere, Buddy, and I'll tell you about babies." Obligingly, Noah clamored into his father's lap. "You remember the bird's nest in the back yard?"

Elle couldn't help it--she burst out laughing. "The birds and bees? You're actually giving him the birds and bees?" It was too much.

"Hey, my mother gave me the birds and bees when I was about his age, and look how I turned out!" Elle started to say that she didn't want her son to become a psychotic serial killer who hacked off people's skulls to play in their brains, but she didn't think that breakfast was the right place to bring that up, so she just raised one eyebrow. Gabriel just smiled. "You know what I mean."

Elle nodded, "go ahead. I can't wait to hear this."

"Okay, so the birds had little eggs, right? Well those eggs are baby birds. Your mommy's stomach is like an egg..." Elle cleared her throat in warning. Gabriel back-tracked, "but of course she is much more beautiful than those eggs were, isn't she?" Noah nodded, Elle smiled and Gabriel sighed--crisis averted. "See, the baby is growing in her stomach, and until it's big enough to come out, that's where it's going to stay."

"But..." Noah still looked a little confused. "How did it get in there?"

Elle swallowed, "Daddy and I... we loved each other so much that the love just... um... spilled over! And the baby started growing." Gabriel snickered and Elle shot him a look.

Noah's little brow was furrowed as he tried to compile all the information his parents had given him. "Oh," he said at last. "Tommy Dawson told me that babies came from penises, but I guess he was wrong." Shrugging, Noah hopped off Gabriel's lap and left his parents sitting at the table in shocked silence.


End file.
